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Cape Town - UCT student leader Athabile Nonxuba was released on R500 bail after appearing in the Cape Town Magistrate's Court on a charge of robbery on Tuesday.

Nonxuba was arrested on October 24, for allegedly taking a set of keys from a bus driver who was driving students from a residence to campus.

He faces two other charges of malicious damage to property relating to the Shackville protests at the beginning of the year and the student protests that started after September 19.

Nonxuba stepped into the dock carrying a copy of Black Consciousness icon Steve Biko's book I Write What I Like. Students whispered words of encouragement to him.

Magistrate Aziz Hamid warned him to stay out of trouble, saying he was lucky to get bail in the first place. The State did not oppose bail.

Nonxuba was a central figure in the Rhodes Must Fall protests. Those protests led to the removal of the colonialist's statue from UCT’s grounds in April 2015.

Some students at the university were driving a campaign for university fees to be scrapped altogether. They rejected Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande's announcement on September 19 to freeze fee increases again for 2017, but only for students from families earning less than R600 000 a year. Better-off families would have pay increases that had to be capped at 8%.

Another student leader, Masixole Mlandu, was expected to appear in the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court on charges of malicious damage to property on Wednesday.

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